Page Two
William A. Hammel - 1899-1902 and 1907-1914
The fifth native son elected Sheriff; the twenty-second Sheriff of the County; served two periods
in office, a total of twelve years; educated in Los Angeles schools; County was granted a Charter
by the State Legislature during his second period in office; Many improvements in service
during his term; Times building dynamited; first automobile introduced into County service;
Eugene W. Biscailuz enters the Department.
The twenty-second Sheriff of Los Angeles County was William A. Hammel. He was elected
November 8, 1898, and served four years. He ran for the office as a candidate of the Republican
Party, and at the close of his term was defeated for the re-nomination by Will A. White, who had
served as Undersheriff with John C. Cline. After an interim of the four years of White's
incumbency he was again nominated, and elected November 6, 1906. After serving a term of
four years he was re-elected for another term on November 8, 1910, thus serving three full terms
of four years each, or a total of twelve years in all, during the two periods of his incumbency of
the office. This was the longest total period of time served by any man ever elected to the office
of Sheriff in Los Angeles County.
During the four years interim between his periods of service as Sheriff, he served for a time as
Chief of the Police Department of Los Angeles City, and later as a Special Confidential Agent
for the Los Angeles Gas Company.
He was the twenty-fourth, as well as the twenty-second Sheriff of the County, the nineteenth man
to occupy the position and the seventeenth elected by the citizens of the County.
Sheriff Hammel was a native of the City of Los Angeles. His parents were Dr. William A. and
Barbara Hammel, natives of Germany. Dr. Hammel came to California during the gold rush of
1849, and had been a member of the historic San Francisco Vigilantes. He was a comparatively
early settler in Los Angeles where he engaged in the practice of medicine for many years,
admired and respected by all who knew him. He built and occupied as a family residence, one of
the first brick houses erected in the City, on San Pedro, between Second and Third Streets,
where William A. Hammel, one of twelve children born to this splendid couple, first saw the light
of day on March thirteenth 1865.
Dr. Hammel passed to his reward October thirteenth 1889, followed by his estimable wife ten
years later, in September 1899.
William A. Hammel passed his boyhood days in Los Angeles and received his education in the
public schools of the City. On June 22, 1892 he married to Mary Lillian Phillips, a daughter of
Oliver B. and Anna C. Phillips. The father of Mrs. Hammel was a well known lawyer of Los
Angeles. One daughter Phyllis, was born to Mr. and Mrs. Hammel and their home was one of
the loveliest in the city. Hammel was a brother-in-law of former Sheriff Gard who had married
his older sister.
After attaining his majority, having made a study of the two great political parties of the United
States, he decided to cast his lot with the Republicans. He took a leading part in the
deliberations of the local politicians, and because of his honesty and integrity, soon became well
and favorably known. His numerous friends, feeling that he had outstanding qualities as a leader
in public affairs, brought forward his name as a candidate for official honors. Previous to this,
however, he had proved his ability and general trustworthyness as a public officer in his services
as a Deputy Sheriff with Martin C. Aguirre, Sheriff of the County in 1889 and 1890, as a Deputy
County Clerk, and again as a Deputy Sheriff under his immediate predecessor in office, Sheriff
John Burr. He met the responsibilities of those positions in a very satisfactory manner.
When Hammel became Sheriff the second time in 1907, the number of Superior Court
Departments in the County had increased to nine. The County population had reached four
hundred thousand, and the personnel of the Sheriff's office numbered twenty-eight. Included in
that personnel, and those he afterward appointed during his period in office, were man Deputies
who have since become distinguished, because of their service, several of whom are occupying
important positions in the Department of today(1940).
Among these were Major Julius B. Loving, who was retired January 7, 1937, after more than
thirty years of service to the Department, Frank Cochran, who had begun his service with Will A.
White in 1903 and retired in 1935, N.M. Sweesy, also retired in 1935, Frank W.(Spike) Modie,
deceased, William (Bill) Osterholt and Dan Crowley, both retired, Wm. I. Traeger, later Sheriff
for twelve consecutive years, now deceased, Juan Murietta, who began his service in the office
with Sheriff James C. Kays, Eugene W. Biscailuz, present Sheriff of the County, and Arthur C.
Jewell, serving as present as Undersheriff(1940).
During the second term of the office, Sheriff Hammel appointed the first woman Deputy Sheriff
to be sworn into office in the United States. She was Margaret Q. Adams, who began her duties
on February 16, 1912, and is still serving in the Department, holding the position of "Return
Clerk" in the Civil Division.
Another of his appointments was that of Mrs. Elizabeth Bartoo, as Jail Matron in November
1913, who served continually until her retirement for reasons of health in December 1934, after
twenty-one years of service.